Home in the meadow
by silentloveaffair
Summary: Katniss returns to her home after the rebellion only to find her recovery hopeless with her mind and heart scarred. Her only comfort comes from him? But why has he stayed?
1. Chapter 1

Note- I do not claim to own the Hunger Games or the characters used in this story. All rights go to Suzanne Collins.

I wake up. Shivering, cold, alone and shaking, violently. Although, I'm not alone. No. I will never be alone. Not now. Not since we came home. I must remind myself this every time I awaken from those horrifying illusions. Next to me, I feel his warm body pressed against mine, his arms trapping me in his snare, his soft tones coaxing me back to sleep, reassuring me. I struggle with the witchcraft he so elegantly uses against me. His spells rolling so easily from his soft tongue. His lips, compared to my venomous spitting, press the sounds from his mouth. I scream, angered by the power he has over me. I do not want to sleep. I want to escape these dreadful nightmares that remind me of the terrors we faced in the arena, the rebellion. It's over now, but so quickly it returns to me as I fall into oblivion. I mustn't let him force me back there. "No!" I'm flailing now, kicking and clawing at him in a desperate attempt to escape his grasp. "Let me go!" I screech. He hushes me, tightening his lock with my every move. Why must he do this to me? Doesn't he see how each nightmare, each pair of mutts eyes, each of Prim's disabling screams from those revolting Jabberjays, each hint of rose, each drop of blood, scars me beyond repair? I am beyond repair. I see this now. This is why it does not matter to him. Sinking into his strong chest, eventually I tire, cursing under my breath. Not once does he stop with his comforting words or his gentle hushing. Before I slip away, I ask him one question. "Why?" He must be wondering if I'm going to add to my question, or if he'll ever have an answer because I still have no response when I'm ensnared once again by the darkness, my head rising and falling with his sturdy rhythm.

I wake again. This time to the dazzling rays striking through my window pane and my hands relaxed by my side. My hearts pounding, but I do not scream, and I am not shaking. "Maybe I'm getting better" I whisper to myself, although I'm fully aware that this is very unlikely, I've had long enough now to recover, and I have not. Sometimes I wonder if I ever will, if time, the universal healer of both a broken heart and mind, can even fix me. I sit up, embracing the warmth from the morning sun, tilting my head back slightly. I don't smile, but I feel happy, well happier than usual anyway. With a sudden urge to be proactive, I swing my legs from the bed and hop onto my toes, searching for a t-shirt to throw over my underclothes as I dodge the medicine bottles and damp wash flannels. Sometimes, when I'm having a particularly bad night, he'll wet them and press them against my head in another attempt to calm me. From the sight, I can see last night was one of those nights, though I can't remember it. I find his shirt laying on the floor, scrunched up in the corner, as if it had been thrown in a moment of frustration. It makes sense. With me refusing to recover and all, surely he's getting tired of me by now. I sigh. Disappointed by my own selfishness. I wish I could be better, or act as if I am. That way he wouldn't feel the need to stay, I don't want him to leave, but I don't want him to stay either. I bend down to retrieve the shirt and as I pull it over my head I smell his strong odour that I've grown so accustomed to. Careful to keep my positive mind, I do not linger in my bedroom, and after opening my window I float towards the stairs, not stopping think of how I looked in his oversized shirt.

I slip into the living room, the TVs blaring bright colours around the room. It's such a contrast to the programs before the revolution to the Capitol propaganda and the droning voices. Even the littlest of changes become apparent when you're locked up for so long. I say locked up, what I mean is trapped. I can leave, physically, but emotionally? No. I could never bring myself to leave this house. For some reason, I creep towards the kitchen, afraid to make him aware of my presence. He stands at the sink, the tap gushing out water as steam rises around him, fogging the window before him. Mechanically, he washes the dishes, each action being perfectly timed. I remember it's not just me who suffered from the games. He's almost finished when he stops to exhale a lungful of air, it's my sigh, only it contains something more, confusion we both share, and I can hear the hopeless lost feeling I experience on occasion, but no. The sound he makes is the sound a person is faced with a dilemma, when a choice is to be made. Curious, I wait, hoping he'll reveal more. I get nothing and so I approach him, slower than before, and begin to dry the dishes he washes with so much precision. As I stand there, heated by the steam, comforted by his presence and occupied by my task, I can only bring one sentence to cross my lips "Why did you choose me?"


	2. Chapter 2

I've stopped drying. He's watching me. Studying me. He's answered my question many times, and each time his response changes. I need to know the truth, but this time, something has started him. I shoot back to his sigh, bursting with the dilemma of choice. Is that what his dilemma was, to tell me why or to lie…again? Haymitch had chosen me the first time, and Peeta the second. He owes me nothing, and yet here he is. Washing my dishes in my house. I can still feel his eyes on me, what is he thinking? I'd love to know. Most of the time Haymitch and I are in sync, completely aware of one another's thoughts, but its times like these when certain questions are raised that his mind becomes a haze to me and a fog settles between us. Fog. Oh no! My heart rates quickening, my breaths becoming short. I try to revive myself from the nightmare, but it's too late, its beginning.

I'm running. Running so hard. Pain is shooting through my chest, my lungs tightening. Peeta's coughing, he can't keep up. My bow feels heavy in my grasp, its dragging me down. I can hear the strain on his throat. Mine is burning. Surely his is ten times worse. The mist caught him before me. His face is sagging. My breathings slowing. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Mags. I can see her. Determined this won't happen again I'm running back for her. Each step growing smaller than the last. I reach her, Peeta's gone, and I turn back, screaming for him. He's gone. I spin around. Mags. Mags. Where is she? My arms are swinging in front of me, I can't reach her. The mist is smothering me now. I collapse to the ground. Stroking my pin. Finnick has Peeta. No, Finnick has Mags. No! Mags is dead. Peeta is safe. With one last breath I call for Peeta, but it's not his name that escapes in a whisper from my lips.

I hear him then, my father, he's singing. I smile. So this is what's next. The sound of his voice warms me, I can't see him, but he's there. . My eyes are snapped shut, afraid that what they'll reveal is not what I'm imagining. I feel him scoop me up into his arms and I snuggle deep into his chest. Safe. I feel the hypnotic sound of his footsteps beneath me and with every step I'm falling deeper into a trance. I feel myself being lowered, my eyes flicker open; longing to see my father's old seam eyes staring into mine. I smile, hoping to greet him in the best way possible. My smile fades. Of course, it isn't my father, but Haymitch. Once again he rescues me from my terrors. His hand is resting on mine, cradling it, protecting it. I will forever be in his debt, he seems insistent upon that. I'm lying on the sofa in the living room, he's had the sense to turn off the TV. The colours would send me sick if I saw them like this. Coming to my senses I can hear his words, in soft tones he's speaking the lyrics of a song my father used to sing to me as a child. If it was anyone else, this would unsettle me, but it's Haymitch, and I trust him so it soothes me further. Feeling guilty and slightly embarrassed I feel the need to ridicule his caring ways. "My prince!" I gasp, raising my hand to my head like a damsel in distress. My acting skills are awful, but they're good enough to pull of this look and he sneers at me before grinning. "No need to be embarrassed, sweetheart. That's what I'm here for". He says this as he pecks my head and squeezes my hand before winking and returning to the kitchen…and there he goes again. Understanding my every thought and every emotion. If I kept a diary, I'd be sure he was reading it.

I glance down at myself before I notice how I look. All I'm wearing is Haymitch's shirt. "Well doesn't this look great" I snort to myself. Deciding that whats been seen cannot be unseen I sway back into the kitchen to complete my task. He's no longer washing the dishes but sat up on the counter analysing one of his tonics. As I emerge I feel his eyes leave his bottle and swap over to me, pretending not to notice I continue drying the dishes. His eyes are still on me, I can feel them, slowly going up and down over my body. There's no denying that I liked the attention, but I wasn't about to admit it either. "That's my shirt, Sweetheart" He comments. "So it is" I toss back, suggesting I'd just noticed as he mentioned it. I heard him jumping down from the counter. For some reason my heart quickens and I'm holding my breath as he whispered near my neck "Well, Sweetheart, you can wear them more often".


	3. Chapter 3

"Haymitch wants me" This is all I could think before tsunamis of emotion and memories were brought forth, there was only ever one person who truly wanted me, no. He didn't want me, he needed me, and I let him go. I've always wanted Peeta. The Peeta that held me so tightly in that cold, damp cave. The Peeta that risked a beating to help me. The Peeta that lay down his life in the name of my own. I want the Peeta that was afraid to let go when he held me. I want the boy with the bread. The second Haymitch whispered those words, it triggered something within me, a spark, a flame. Flashes came back, sudden flashes, quick, non-organised, flashes. We were in the cave, he held me so close. On the victory tour, heartbroken, he held me like I was perfect. I was his. He made me feel perfect. Those big, yet so delicate hands that cupped my face with ease. My strong, dear Peeta. Where is he now?

I never realised I loved him, not until I'd left him heartbroken. We'd returned home when I learnt it wasn't all for the cameras on his part. I couldn't lie to him. I loved him. I just, didn't know. Each day I wonder if he'll ever come back, my Peeta, the boy with the bread. They changed him, and that can never be rewritten, it was my fault. I would give anything for that the boy who truly loved me to come back. Now I am alone, and Haymitch's flirting only reminds me of this more. Tears begin to come as I think of him, a few minutes down the road, but completely unreachable. Haymitch pulls me in close and takes me into the living room, I took my head into his chest, the rhythm of his breathing calming me quickly. I apologize. He says nothing, just shakes his head. Desperate to get it off my chest, I explain everything I just felt about Peeta, in that one moment. He listens, reassuring me that he may still come back his hands running through my hair as he does so. Now it's my turn to shake my head. We both know he isn't coming back, I know because Haymitch doesn't argue with me further, he just sits with me, his arms locked around my side and his face buried in my hair. Slowly, I start to calm down and accept the loss of Peeta. Still, as I look down at Haymitch's hands, large, strong, scarred, grubby, I can only think of Peeta in the arena and how I long for those days in our little cave to be relived just once more. Exhausted from my several breakdowns, I wiggle out his grasp giggling because he won't let me go, "I'm going to take a shower, I won't be long" I announce and with that I head upstairs, well halfway up because before I reach the top I can hear Haymitch, he gave another long sigh. I can't help but wondering why we're all sighing all of a sudden, but then I notice, there was a sadness to his sound. Haymitch is hurt, he's wounded. But…why? Why is Haymitch hurt? Nothing has happened to him recently apart from the increasing apparent loss of Peeta. I'm ready to fall back down the stairs when I realise… it's me. Haymitch is wounded because I'm still in love with Peeta.


	4. Chapter 4

Note- This is the first fanfic I've written before and I'm still trying to figure out where i'm at with it all. My writing will NOT be the best in this story so please take this into consideration if you review, although all reviews, good or bad, are welcome.

Since stumbling up the stairs everything has been a blur. I don't know why, but in that moment I expected to plunge back into my sickening zombie state, and for some inexpressible reason, I didn't. No. Instead I became Katniss Everdeen, I was, to be cliché, reborn. The Mockingjay. The Girl on Fire. I have no excuse to be her anymore, but I feel I have to be. It's who I am supposed to be, except, there's nothing left to do, or…so I thought. The rebellion is over, and Panem lies in peace, although many people still starve and many fall ill.

I've dedicated myself to changing this. I do my best to heal those who are ill, and although I did not inherit my mother's healing hands, I seem to succeed in healing some of the most damaged of people. It's incredible how much I've learnt from being around my mother with her patients, but I'll never be as good as Prim is. Was. When I'm not healing I'm out in the woods hunting, and though, little wildlife remains after the destruction of 12, I've noticed an increase in the size of my takings and I keep several families from hunger. Life seems to be returning to its normal ways, without the hunger and exhaustion for most yet still I'm determined this sudden outburst of action is one of two things; a genuine recovery, or a futile attempt to recover my old self, the girl before the games. Either way it feels better being trapped inside that empty house, even if Haymitch is always around.

"I wonder what Haymitch has made for dinner" I wonder, he, like myself, has gained a spark of life and appears to have developed a taste for cooking. I've been hunting and after dropping off my haul I'm walking back to the house. Peeta no longer lives in the Victor's village, so I never see him. It's fully occupied now by survivors from 12 and from other districts. Gale, nor my Mother or Prim are among them, for various reasons. I live with Haymitch now, and all I can do is be grateful for that, otherwise I wouldn't be standing here. He's been feeding me information of Peeta's recovery whenever I seem like I can bear the sound of his name, and recently Peeta is said to be getting a lot better.

Upon my return my nostrils are mauled by the overpowering smell of food as soon as I swing open the door, I take a moment to breathe in the aroma, welcoming the present and forthcoming pleasure. "He's getting really good at this" I think before pulling off my old hunting boots and gloves. He grins as I stroll towards the kitchen to catch a glimpse of what's cooking. "Good right?" "Better than yesterday" I snort. I smirk to let him know that I'm joking, but I needn't. He understands me well enough to know exactly when I'm joking and when I'm not, despite my remarkably advanced level of sarcasm. I go to take a seat in the dining room, but he stops me before I pull out my chair. "Kitchen, Lady" he remarks and I spin on my heels in response, raising one eyebrow as I do in question. Haymitch has consistently set the table and served the food since his new cooking venture. He calms my curiosity immediately… "We have" He takes a long pause, considering his vocabulary, "…guests".


End file.
